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Part 2 - From Victim.  To Survivor.  To Becoming a   POWERFUL LIFE FORCE   by   Kathleen Hoy Foley

2/2/2018

 
                                                                SURVIVOR
 
 Survivor is a disembodied identity that describes the outcome of a catastrophe.  Most victims of violence survive.  All are wounded.  Surviving is fundamental—a basic human instinct automatically activated when all else has failed.  A survivor endures.  Surviving is perseverance.  Surviving is existing in a stalled energy cycle of impending exhaustion.  Surviving is no substitute for the energy of victory.  A survivor does not radiate power and authority.  Surviving is an interim condition.  The challenge of a survivor of violence is to move out of the energy cycle of mere survivorship and into the light and strength of truth, understanding, self-honor, and self-supporting behavior. 
 
Society fabricates “hero survivors”.  They impose upon them superhuman attributes achievable by no mortal.  “Survivors as heroes” are lavished with praise and admiration and paraded through the media, lauded for their extraordinary strength and courage.  Hero survival is an invention created for public consumption, entertainment, brand marketing, and religious and political manipulation.  Public and religious enterprises promote the fantasy of hero survivor as a feasible objective for all survivors of catastrophe.  Even though the conquests and triumphs of the hero survivor are exaggerated lies, this unachievable fantasy remains the measure of success.  The burden of unrealistic expectations then is forced upon those victimized by violence by the misinformed masses.  This continual infliction of lies masquerading as truth creates an energy vortex of corrosion and contamination that cripples individuals and society as a whole by impeding the necessary progress toward discovery of truth and ultimate resolution.    
 
All victims of violence bleed pain.  That pain manifests itself emotionally and physically.  All survivors of violence scream, cry, rage, and plummet into the nightmare inflicted upon them.  Despite outward appearances, all survivors of violence are weakened by the violence they suffered.  In this fragile condition, life must be reinvented.  Reordered.  Rebuilt.  There is no choice.  There is no return to before.
 
When survivors of violence—sexual or otherwise—align themselves with fictional representations of what survivors are purported to be and believe the undermining propaganda peddled as attainable reality, victims trap themselves in a downward energy spiral of failure.  Fantasy is not achievable.  Violence is a powerful force.  Violence always wins.  It may be temporary.  It may be permanent.  Whatever violence destroys is gone forever.    
 
Surviving is the transition period from what life was before the violence to what kind of life will come after.  Surviving is a time for crying.  A time for mourning.  It is a place of staggering fury and flattening depression.  It is a morass of denial and confusion.  A dark void of unspeakable human emotions.  Guilt.  Humiliation.  Terror.  Left unresolved, the energy of emotional pain will coalesce into unrestrained trauma that will continue to gain energy and grow increasingly powerful, extending its destructive tentacles far into the future and beyond.  In other words, the reach of trauma is forever unlimited. 
 
A survivor of violence lacking the knowledge of the workings of vital life energy and overwhelmed by unrealistic fictional images and cultural and religious demands, unwittingly converts the temporary circumstance of surviving into a permanent emotional prison.  Life marches forward with or without knowledge.  But without knowledge and comprehension, free will life choices do not exist for the survivor of violence.
 
A survivor of violence will forever require compassion, understanding, support, and patience, and safety.  Survivors must build and create a strong support structure within themselves along with a grounded, insightful, outside support system.  The outside support must be stable and capable of recognizing and validating truths without succumbing to the pull of negative energies echoing from the aftermath of the violence.  This building and strengthening process requires time.  And more time.  And more time. 
 
Survivors willing to fight for themselves will gain inherent strength from their connection to their deeper truths.  The warrior within will awaken and follow the urge to pursue the fire of the soul’s passion to gather unto itself deeper wisdom and increased confidence.  With the success of acquiring authentic personal power along with the energetic force of increasing courage, the survivor will mature into a conscious healer.  This organic, seismic shift will transform survivors into a powerful life force of their own creation.
 
 
Next time: WORDS

 

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    About the Author

    In the provocative spirit of Matilda Joslyn Gage, Gloria Anzaldua, and Mary Daly, Kathleen Hoy Foley expands and deepens the voice of female experience.

    Raw. Uncompromising. Compassionate. Deliberately antagonistic. Kathleen writes to awaken the courage within the reader.


    TO THE SURVIVOR
    If you are a person who was victimized as a child or as an adult, I am so very sorry you ever had to suffer at the hands of a predator. 

    I am sorry you were abused, sorry no one protected you, sorry you have felt so alone, sorry you have been so afraid then and in the now. I am so sorry for the loss of your innocence. 

    You were and are entitled to you life. And you had a right to inherit your own body. And no matter what you did or what you think you failed to do you are not to blame. Sexual abuse is never a victim's choice. Sexual abuse is something that was done to your body not something you wanted. 

    This is an excerpt from: 

    http://web.archive.org/web/20130101063123/http://true-perspective.org 

    Kathleen and I encourage you to visit this site for perspective on your ordeal. Live happy and whole. Claim you power! 

    You are your own authority.

    Question Everything.  Including social, religious & political authorities

    Learn to listen and respond to your intuition.  It is never wrong.

    Learn to be impolite.  It must be part of your defense system.

    Nothing is unspeakable.

    Stare truth in the eye and speak it.

    You name abuse.  Listen to your body.  It will tell you.  It is never wrong. 

    Stare abuse in the eye and speak it.

    Stare abusers in the eye and name them.

    Use your voice.  Use your words. 

    BE LOUD.  Violence against girls, boys, women and men hides in the silent shadows.

    Know that you are powerful.

    KNOW THAT YOUR VOICE IS POWERFUL.   USE IT.


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